IU grad assistant Kory Barnett joins UCLA staff as video coordinator

Kory Barnett was expecting to put in two years as a graduate assistant at Indiana and would’ve been willing to stay in Bloomington for his entire coaching career if the situation worked out that way.

But Barnett got a full-time opportunity at another blue-blood program working for family friends he’d known for most of his life, and that was too good to pass up. The Indiana graduate assistant and former Indiana walk-on confirmed Monday that he has taken the video coordinator position at UCLA under former Indiana All-American Steve Alford.

“I had hoped to stay here, but there was not a lot of movement (above the graduate assistant position),” said Barnett, who joined the Indiana program as a walk-on in 2008, Tom Crean’s first year as head coach. “So this was a perfect situation for me to be able to work at a place like UCLA. Coach Crean has been amazing. Since Day 1, he’s been supporting me with this. He told me this is a no-brainer to join a program like that. I feel like I can bring a lot to that program considering what I’ve experienced here from where we were my freshman year. I’ve seen a lot and I’ve learned a lot. I’m excited to learn more from a new coach and to learn different style of play. I’m blessed to have worked with Coach Crean and his amazing staff that made me feel like I was preprared to take this step.”

Barnett said he and his father Mike Barnett, a member of the board of directors of the Indiana Elite AAU program and a consultant with Adidas, have known Alford since the former Indiana All-American took his first coaching job at Division III Manchester College. Though the younger Barnett spent most of his youth in Portland, Ore., he was close with all of Alford’s children and annually attended Alford’s camps when Alford coached at Iowa.

Barnett was also close with Ed Schilling, the former Park Tudor coach who was one of Alford’s first assistant coach hires when he was hired at UCLA at the end of March. Schilling was actually ordained as a minister last year so he could perform Barnett’s wedding last summer.

Barnett said he contacted Alford shortly after Alford made the move from New Mexico to UCLA and told him he’d be interested in any position that might be available. He said the two discussed the possibility on Friday when both were in Atlanta for various coaching seminars, conferences and festivities that surround the Final Four.

Barnett said he will finish out this semester in graduate school and hopes to move to Los Angeles by the middle of May. The video coordinator work will be a bit of an adjustment because he had more of an on-court role and graduate assistant Aaron Weaver and Mike Santa had more film responsibilities, but he’s been working at length with Weaver recently to get a better handle on it.

Regardless, he’s anxious to move from one of the nation’s premier programs to another.

“Moving from a program like Indiana to another program such as UCLA is just unbelievable,” Barnett said. “I haven’t been to UCLA yet, but having been here and having seen how close-knit it is from Fred Glass to President McRobbie on down, I can only hope for the same.”

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11 comments

Kory, congratulations on the new job. But I hope you negotiated a good compensation package, because you’re going to be shocked at the cost of living in LA compared to Bloomington. The average rent for a one bedroom studio-aprtment in any area accessible to the UCLA campus is over $2,000 a month. Great weather, though!

Podunker,
I ask this in good fun, but I’m also kind of serious. How far down on the list of circles of hell would we have to go before we found a place you would consider living in Southern California preferable to?

Great question, Dustin. But before I attempt to answer, let me say that most people living in “Southern California” make a distinction between Los Angeles and the rest of “Southern California.” For example, most people living in Orange County or San Diego County have a strong disdain for Los Angeles (the city and the county). They don’t want to go there, would never live there, and take exception to being described as being from there. “Oh, so you live out in LA?” Typical response, “No, I live in (fill in the blank).” There is a significant difference in the culture, politics, expense and traffic between LA and all other communities in Southern California. It’s like suggesting that a person living in Bloomington is from “Indy.”

So Dustin, my answer is this. Given the great weather, LA is not quite as bad as living in hell, but you can see it from there.

Southern California is an interesting place. Did the go ski at Big Bear and than hit the beach at Corona that evening. As Po notes, the cost of living takes some getting used too. And money – lots of money. Corona Del Mar, Newport Beach, Laguna, La Jolla nice. Bring $$$. Lived in Riverside, San Bernadino was nice 40 yrs ago.

Plenty to do and see but after 6 yrs really tired of the whole place. Went through a 7. something earthquake I was the naked guy standing outside my destroyed apartment. Somewhere in the newspaper archive….it was cold that night.

SoCal is great for 20 minutes. Let him spend a couple years there before forming an opinion. My sis lives in LaJolla and I still have that beach house in Mission Beach at my disposal whenever I want. I haven’t wanted in over 8 years.

Ron, I had to laugh at your post #5. I was out in San Bernardino, CA on business when a powerful earth quake hit nearby (the epicenter was very close). I had just come out of the shower in the hotel room to answer the phone when things started rockin and rollin. My wife had called, so I calmly told her that we were experiencing a big earthquake. She started screaming through the phone, “honey, get out, get out of that hotel, get out now!” I calmly responded, “Nope, I’m standing here naked and dripping wet from the shower, and I have not even opened my suitcase. I’m not going anywhere, so we’ll just ride this out together.” We laugh about it now, but my wife thought the building was going to come crashing down with me in the middle of it.

Hey, California has some of the most beautiful scenery in the US. It’s a great place to go on vacation. And if you’re super-wealthy, So Cal would be a great place to live. But LA is in rapid decline and probably the most expensive city in America to live in. I will not be surprised if we hear that LA County, or the city of LA, has declared bankruptcy in the near future.